


Think Long

by stardropdream



Category: Chobits
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 11:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Yumi takes matters into her own hands, much to Ueda's surprise and embarrassment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Think Long

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ May 28, 2009.

“And I thought maybe afterwards we could go to the bookstore, because there’s a new cookbook I want to pick up,” Yumi finished, grabbing a jug of milk and placing it in their shopping cart.   
  
Ueda nodded. “That’ll be alright. It’s on the way back to the bakery, anyway.”   
  
Yumi smiled. “Okay. Thanks!”   
  
“It’s no trouble,” he returned with a smile, his cheeks a bright pink.  
  
Yumi turned away, grabbing more things off shelves and putting them in the shopping cart for Ueda to push along. They were doing their weekly shopping trip, resupplying for the bakery. They’d used the last of the flour this morning on five different orders for five different kinds of cakes. It’d been a stressful morning, so stressful that Yumi had almost short-changed the customer and Ueda of all people noticed the mistake in time before Yumi unknowingly ripped off the customer.   
  
She rolled up her sleeves as she dropped off a moderately sized bottle of vanilla extract. “What else do we need?”   
  
Ueda dug around in his pocket and pulled out a haphazard grocery list written on the back of a napkin. It was creased and wrinkled, from being stuffed in a pocket and fiddled with—whenever Ueda was nervous, he would fiddle, it was another little quirk that Yumi noticed and loved about him—and he read it over.   
  
“You got the vanilla?” he asked.  
  
“Just now,” Yumi confirmed with a nod.   
  
He ran his finger down the list, mentally checking off whatever was already in the cart. “Looks like we just need the powder sugar and we’ll be all set.”  
  
“Great!” Yumi said. “And after this, the supplies store?”   
  
“Hmm,” he agreed, “I lost my whisk again.”  
  
“You keep doing that,” Yumi said, laughter in her eyes, and she bumped his arm with her shoulder (since she couldn’t reach his shoulder. Sometimes she hated being short.) “You need to keep better track of your equipment, Hiroyasu.”   
  
He laughed, embarrassed.   
  
They went to the front of the store, and paid for their groceries. The bags weren’t heavy, but Ueda insisted on holding them all. They made it a total of one block before Ueda nearly stumbled and dropped everything. After that, they sensibly (by Yumi’s insistence) divided the weight between the two of them. They walked in a companionable silence before Yumi launched into another story about her sister and her new boyfriend, or about what Hideki said the other day during work, or how the weather was supposed to be that weekend.   
  
Ueda nodded and interjected the appropriate exclamations when necessary (“oh wow” and “that’s amazing!”)   
  
They were one block away from the kitchen supplies store when the door to a clothing store suddenly opened and a couple cut in front of them. Ueda nearly tripped over his feet again, but luckily Yumi, with one free hand, shot out and steadied him by the elbow and kept them from losing the milk and eggs in one flying go.   
  
The man and woman who’d cut them off looked surprised, then apologetic. “I’m so sorry,” the woman said, worrying her lower lip. “I should have been paying more attention.”  
  
Five bags swung from her husband’s arms. “Alright, now?”  
  
“It’s fine,” Ueda dismissed with a laugh before Yumi could say anything. “Luckily Yumi-chan has very quick reflexes.”   
  
The couple shifted uncomfortably, still looking apologetic, before going along their way, walking the way that Ueda and Yumi had come. Yumi glanced over her shoulder and watched as the couple shifted closer together, held hands. Even from far away, she could see the rings on their fingers. Their fingers interlaced, and the man laughed at something the woman said. They kept walking together, and the man leaned down to whisper something in her ear, met with her small laughter.   
  
Yumi kept watching the couple until they were away from earshot, watching them until they turned the corner. She watched the way their eyes never left the other.  
  
She looked at Ueda. He looked up from his shopping list, blinking once, his cheeks a soft pink color, before he smiled at her. “Hm?”  
  
Her cheeks turned pink. “No… it’s nothing.”   
  
  
\---  
  
  
Days later, and she was still mulling over it. Everywhere she looked, there were couples walking hand-and-hand. It wasn’t that Ueda wasn’t affectionate. It was just that they both were easily flustered around one another, but especially Ueda. Whenever he walked her home from the bakery and kissed her goodnight, even if there was no one around, his face would always turn the color of a tomato.   
  
She sighed, sitting on a stool, chin cushioned in her hands. Leaning forward, she watched Ueda stir the beginnings of a cake mixture. Set in his recipe, he didn’t notice her eyes on him. It was for the better, because he would undoubtedly become uncomfortable if he noticed that Yumi was openly staring at him.  
  
Or, rather, staring off into space. Her mind was elsewhere. She’d been thinking about it for a long time, ever since the two of them resolved their miscommunication and gotten back together.   
  
“How many orders do we have today?” Yumi asked, not taking her eyes away from Ueda.  
  
He didn’t look up from his bowl as he continued to mix. “Only this one.”  
  
“That’s good,” Yumi said. “We’ll be able to clean up early.”  
  
“Mm,” he agreed, “Unless we get another customer in before closing.”  
  
“Yeah.”   
  
They lapsed into silence. It wasn’t an uncomfortable one, just the general lack of words. Yumi watched Ueda as he worked, waiting for any instructions he might have for her. He seemed undaunted by the work, however, and instead seemed rather absorbed in what he was doing. Yumi watched him with a smile curling her lips upwards.   
  
“We need to buy an electric mixer one of these days,” Ueda muttered to himself, pausing in his whisking to rotate his wrist, trying to relieve a cramp that was starting up.   
  
Yumi laughed to herself, but said nothing more, tapping her feet against the support of the counter, leaning over and still watching him. She wondered how long it would take him to notice. He didn’t. He merely waved his hand around to relieve the tension building up in his wrist and went back to stirring.   
  
Yumi was silent for a very, very long time.   
  
“Hiroyasu,” Yumi finally ventured, watching as he stirred the bowl of flour, whisking it expertly, his face set in concentration.  
  
He looked up at her, smiling the smile he reserved only for her, a question and silent invitation in his eyes.   
  
Yumi took in a long, shaky breath. “… Will you marry me?”   
  
There was a brief moment when there was only the sound of whisking in the air, and then Ueda’s face turned a bright red color. It was delayed, starting at the base of his neck and steadily creeping upwards until it reached the roots of his hair and the tips of his ears.   
  
“I—I— W-what?” he managed, dropping his bowl in his surprise. Flour spilled across the counter, and the bowl lolled helplessly to the side, knocking over baking soda before coming to a rest near the milk jug.   
  
Yumi’s hands were shaking. She was certain her voice was, too.   
  
“Will you?” she almost hated how hopeful her voice sounded.   
  
She realized, beyond her own embarrassment, that Ueda’s hands were shaking, too. He looked at her, blinked once, his face deepening in its bright red color.   
  
“That’s…!”  
  
The weight of such a question seemed to slam into him and he trailed off, flustered, and his mouth suddenly very dry and his words fumbling out in half-groaned syllables.   
  
“Hiroyasu—”  
  
“I-isn’t the man supposed to ask that?” he muttered, looking down. For a split second Yumi feared he was horrified, but his expression was one of wonderment and embarrassment, not disgust. She breathed a small sigh of relief. Her relief was short-lived, however, as Ueda didn’t say anything for a very long moment.  
  
His face was still that bright red and he very carefully buried his face in his hands, trying to hide that blush. Yumi watched him in surprise for a moment before laughing a bit helplessly, stepping forward, and touching his wrists very lightly with the tips of her fingers.  
  
“Hey…” she began. She stood off the stool, and it scraped loudly in the silent kitchen. She took a hesitant step towards him, holding out her hands. She could feel the heat in her face, could feel the shake in her hands and the quiver of her heart, but she did not stop coming to him.   
  
He stood there, and one hand strayed away from his tomato-colored face and gripped his baker’s hat, gripping it firmly in his hand until his knuckles turned white, and pulling it off his messy mop of hair.   
  
He peeked at her, shifting his hand to cover his mouth while he stared at her in flustered surprise, still wrapping his head around the question she asked. Under normal circumstances, Yumi would have found his reaction adorable and sweet, but right now his silence and his flustered behavior left her feeling incredibly uneasy.   
  
“Hiroyasu…”   
  
“You’re not… joking, are you?” he finally managed to say, his voice muffled against his hand.   
  
Yumi could only shake her head.  
  
Ueda sighed, but it wasn’t the bad kind of sigh. She watched him, her eyes wide and terrified, her heart beating faster than it ever had in a long time. She heard ringing in her ears. She clutched her hands together, staring up at him and taking another step towards him, tentative, hesitant.   
  
“They’ll undoubtedly say something.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“The media… if they find out… they’ll definitely talk about how your name is the same as…” he trailed off, shaking his head. His face was bright red still, and his eyes pleading.   
  
Yumi worried her lower lip in thought for a moment before grabbing his wrists more firmly. “Then let’s elope!”  
  
“Ack—!”  
  
“I want…” she trailed off, feeling her own face turning a bright red, mirroring Ueda’s face. She stared up at him, hopeless, before laughing again and shaking her head. “I want to marry you. A-and I know you want to, too, or else you would have said no already so… so it’s okay. It’ll hurt, what they’ll say, but it’ll be okay because eventually it’ll go away and we’ll be together. So it’s okay.”   
  
He stared at her, dropping his hand very slowly.  
  
She nodded, smiling at him a bit shyly. “It’s okay.”   
  
“Yumi-chan…”  
  
“Definitely.” She nodded vigorously, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to stare at him so hopelessly, and remind herself why she’d asked that question so spontaneously in the first place. In her heart, she knew she had to ask it. “Hiroyasu…” she said again, “will you?”   
  
He inhaled sharply, and she could just picture his expression as he collected his words, crumbling his baker’s hat in his hand while the other pushed through his hair helplessly.   
  
“Y…” he began, then trailed off as he coughed, trying to shove the words from his throat. “Y-yeah… I will.”   
  
Yumi whipped her eyes open and stared at him, before the largest smile she’d ever given bloomed across her face.   
  
“REALLY?” she asked, before she could stop herself.   
  
He cleared his throat, then nodded.   
  
Yumi let go of his wrists simply so she could throw her arms around his neck and hold him close. He was there to meet her, after stumbling back a few steps, wrapping his arms awkwardly around her waist.   
  
“I’m so glad…” she whispered.   
  
“A-ah.”


End file.
